`Unforgotten' Is Unbelievable And Unrewarding

Joseph Ruben's new thriller, ``The Forgotten,'' is destined to be just that.

The blend of psychological turmoil and sinister supernatural hocus-pocus is a mild fiasco, not because the film is poorly crafted but because it is utterly unbelievable from start to finish.

FOR THE RECORD - Correction published September 25, 2004.The title and star rating for ``The Forgotten'' were misstated on the cover and Page D5 of Friday's Life section. The movie received two stars, not three, and the title is not ``Unforgotten.''

At its core, ``The Forgotten'' is about the ``connective tissue'' between parents and children. It belongs to that category of films in which a parent or guardian becomes a tiger, a fearless, self-sacrificing crusader capable of doing things beyond the power of the average mom or dad in order to rescue a child. (See ``Lorenzo's Oil,'' ``Aliens'' or ``Panic Room.'') But if a parent's atavistic drive is a credible (if overwrought) aspect of ``The Forgotten,'' the other forces at work in the picture make it funny where it should be touching or scary.

Ruben, who directed ``Sleeping With the Enemy'' and ``Return to Paradise,'' knows how to put together a picture, and he knows how to create a certain degree of suspense, but why he bothered to make this movie is anyone's guess.

``The Forgotten'' is a nice-looking, nicely crafted film. It is further legitimized by the presence of Julianne Moore, who plays Telly Paretta, a Brooklyn mom whose son, Sam, died 14 months earlier in a plane crash.

In Gerald Di Pego's script, Telly is overwhelmed by grief, beset by constant flashbacks of Sam playing, Sam laughing, Sam boarding the fatal flight, and she is having trouble returning to the world of the living.

Her efforts are not helped by the fact that everyone around her, from her patient husband (Anthony Edwards) to her neighbor (Jessica Hecht) to her psychiatrist (Gary Sinise) seems to have forgotten the boy.

For the film's best moments, it almost seems as if Sam could be a creation of Telly's beautiful grief-blasted mind, a psychological trick she played on herself in the aftermath of what her husband calls a miscarriage.

But no, Telly did have that baby; she is sure she did; and here is where the trouble starts for audience members.

To involve yourself in ``The Forgotten,'' you must first believe that the father of 9-year-old Sam could be made to forget him. You must believe that all records of Sam's existence -- from photographs stashed in drawers and albums to VHS tapes and library newspaper clippings -- could be somehow surreptitiously altered or erased. You must believe that the kid's Brooklyn neighbors could be persuaded to think the child never was. And you must believe that the only one clinging to the memory is poor Telly.

You are just to the point of wondering who inserted the microchips or ``Stepford''-ized the whole community when things grow even more ridiculous.

Telly meets another parent, Ash (Dominic West), whose daughter Lauren died in the same plane crash in which, supposedly, Sam was killed. Ash, is, rather helpfully it turns out, a physically imposing former New York Ranger hockey player and no stranger to fisticuffs. He and Telly team up to get to the bottom of the ``forgotten'' kids mystery, and suddenly the Feds on are their case. The movie might have worked if it pitted the two parents against a Fed-run program that involved abducting children for nefarious purposes.

But even the long arm of the Fed (with or without the civil-rights-stomping benefits of the Patriot Act) cannot be blamed for the vanishing of materials and memories that is so wishfully pervasive in the film.

So what could it be?

The answer, when you get it, is likely to make you laugh out loud.

Suffice it to say that Ruben's film devolves into a series of humdingers bolstered by special effects. The latter intrude on the carefully conjured realism of the production -- a world of tony Brooklyn lofts, New York streets and psychiatrist's offices -- and it blasts a hole in the middle of the movie as surely as if a semi had driven through the screen.

The ever-capable Moore spends most of the film on the run, literally, sprinting from here to there, pausing only for scenes of emoting on behalf of her child. Co-star West does likewise, with a few pauses for punching out Feds. Alfre Woodard has a few scenes as the New York cop who begins to believe Telly's version of the story, and her exit is a literal scream.

``The Forgotten'' is the perfect title for a film as completely forgettable as this one.

FILM REVIEW **

THE FORGOTTEN is directed by Joseph Ruben. Screenplay by Gerald Di Pego. Cinematography by Anastas Michos. Editing by Richard Francis-Bruce. Original music by James Horner. Produced by Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks and Joe Roth. Opening today at area cinemas. Running time: 91 minutes. Rated PG-13 for some scenes of fist-fighting, a few supernatural chills.